The Day My Son Wanted Nothing to Do With Me

While on vacation with my entire family I had one of the most heart breaking things happen... my son wanted nothing to do with me only my mother (his grandmother).  My mom watches him everyday while I am working so they have a strong bond, but this was completely heart breaking.  If I would take my son into another room for a even a simple task of changing his diaper he would scream bloody murder for my mother.  He wouldn't eat any meals at the table with the rest of the family he wanted to sit on the couch with "Mimi" and eat (despite Mimi sitting at the table with the rest of the family).  We took him to the beach and Mimi had to be the one in the ocean, Mimi had to play in the sand.  When we got back Mimi had to cook his lunch and put him down for his nap.  At bedtime, Mimi had to give him his bath and put him to bed (a task usually reserved for only mommy and daddy).  At one point my husband attempted to help my mother and my son pushed him away and told him no.

There my husband and I were, standing in the kitchen of our rented beach condo, heartbroken wondering what to do next.  My two month old was happily sleeping in the bedroom, surely he still loved us but what did we do to make our toddler favor his grandmother; I didn't want my youngest to favor her too.  I began sobbing into the kitchen counter feeling like a failure as a mother.  I love my kids, they are my everything.  All of my time is devoted to caring for them and being with them.  Yes I do work 40+ hours a week but I wake them up and make their breakfast in the morning, I am getting home when they are waking up from their afternoon naps (thanks to my 10 minute commute) and spend every weekend doing activities with them.  So why did my son want to be with his grandmother over his mother?  What seemed like an eternity later, my mom emerged from the bedroom, my son had fallen asleep and she apologized to me.  She felt bad that my son was favoring her, it was no fault of hers no fault of my son; it was just the fact in that moment.  I went to bed that night feeling very defeated and very heartbroken.

I woke up the next morning to my son snuggled in bed next to me (his bed was in the same room as mine for vacation).  He had woken up in the middle of the night and saw mommy and daddy were in the room and climbed into our bed for comfort.  Obviously, the topic of conversation at the breakfast table was the big elephant in the room.  With the prodding of my brother and sister (thanks again!), we discovered that Mimi had "altered" my son's routine after my second was born.  As my second son likes to eat leisurely, Mimi has started allowing my toddler to eat meals in the family room with his toys so she can focus on feeding the baby.  Since Mommy and Daddy have only left my son to be put to bed by his Mimi (or anybody else) less than 5 nights, Mimi has snuggled with him and watched Sesame Street with him until he fell asleep.  The answer wasn't that he loved his Mimi more than Mommy and Daddy the answer was he liked the way Mimi did things.  As Mimi put it, Mommy and Daddy have more rules.

I was very worried that this was going to continue throughout the entire vacation and extend into our "normal lives" once we got home but thankfully it didn't.  When Mimi became aware of what was happening she enforced mommy and daddy's rules and the Mimi fascination seemed to dwindle.  He still loved his Mimi and wanted to do things with her but he also wanted to interact with all his other family members as well.

Our first night home my son got right into bed and fell right asleep just like he was doing before we went for vacation.  He fell right back into his normal routine in stride as though it had not been interrupted for the week prior.  He was content when Mimi left when Mommy got home from work (even if he wasn't content to stay inside since it was raining and his brother is 2 months old).  He's the exact same kid as he was before we left for vacation except with more words and requesting ice cream every night (Thanks Uncle B).

This was a definite learning experience for me!  Sometimes being a Mommy is a thankless job and sometimes that means not being the "fun one" or the popular one with your kids,  I need to focus on my relationships with my kids and not focus on being the most liked person in their lives.  That doesn't mean however that I don't want to be the most liked in their lives and that it doesn't hurt when they favor someone else.  What am I going to do when they want to go away on a trip without me or want to get married?  I think those things are going to break my heart, but I can't cry in the kitchen forever or can I?

“Motherhood can be seen as a liability”

A good friend of mine and also a working mother forwarded me an article about one woman’s experience working at Amazon. (The article can be found here)  This article was in response to the NY Times article recently posted, explaining her experience when she had a baby and was diagnosed with cancer during her tenure at Amazon.  My friend and I started reading comments on both articles sending  snippets back and forth though G-chat and commenting on the stories we were reading.  As a working mother precious hours have come back into my life from the use of Amazon Prime.  My doorstep is littered almost daily with these prime boxes bringing almost anything to my door from diapers to new shoes to sunscreen.   I commented I wanted to find holes in the article because “I really love my prime and I want to have a reason not to cancel.”  Judging from the 5858 comments posted to the article to date, most people are outraged about a company’s desire to have their employees available 24/7 and with over 80 hour work weeks.  Many people commented on their personal acts of protest in canceling their prime accounts.  While the treatment of employees by Amazon is seen my most as immoral and downright wicked, I can’t help but feeling like this is a snapshot of the overall culture in the workplace.  The major difference between Amazon and other workplaces is its pride in this culture.

“Motherhood can be seen as a liability” is a line that stuck out to me in the article.  I think the author makes a great point here.  Mothers (and fathers) are often unable to sustain an 80+ hour work week and still care for their children.  Employees often experience that having children will prevent them from putting in the hours necessary for advancement.   When time is taken off for having children it often stalls your career or in the case of many of the woman who posted the follow-up article put on a performance improvement plan due to missing months of work and “falling behind” fellow co-workers.  Shouldn’t we start to evaluate the problem?   While people are quick to point fingers at Amazon and start their own personal strike from Amazon, the bigger problem still exists.  Most laws are written to favor the employer.  There is still no legally mandated paid maternity or paternity leave; these are considered to be benefits not rights to the worker.   Salaried exempt employees can be forced to work exuberant numbers of hours with no additional compensation.  What other instances would be okay with paying the same amount and getting less?  I know I would be mad if all of a sudden I went to buy my $3 dozen egg container and only received one egg.  Who would be ok with paying $3 an egg instead of the usual 25¢?  Isn’t that what is happening in the workplace?  Employers are paying an employee $400/week for 40 hours as their salary but now the employer is expecting 80 hours a week; the same employee is making 50% less for what?  While we all balk at these practices nonetheless we all comply out of fear or retribution.  We are more focused on creating a life than we are on living our lives.

In writing this post, I have reflected on my own household.  I would be proud to declare that I work 7am – 3pm in my corporate job, my husband 7:30am – 4pm.  We then come home and focus on our family, no distractions just good solid family time.  Is that really the case?  Recently, my toddler picked up and old non-working computer that we have set aside a toy and happily sat and banged on the keyboard.  I asked him what he’s was doing and he replied with “ I work” in those toddler words that just instantly melt your heart.  Where did he learn that? Obviously he learned that from my husband and me, we’ve obviously been on our computers working during the time that we define as “family time.”  How many nights at my house consisted of my husband and I sitting on our couch computers in our laps keeping an eye on sleeping kids through the baby monitor catching up on emails or reviewing documents.  Many more nights that I would care to admit.

Despite this, we are the lucky ones.  We work for employers that are considered to be “family friendly.”  I’ve always been allowed 12 weeks maternity leave however only 5 weeks are actually paid and they are paid through short-term disability (don’t even get me started on how pregnancy and having a child is a disability).  My husband has been fortunate enough to work for employers that gave him 2 weeks paid paternity leave and allowed him to take longer terms off using vacation time.  Despite our “family friendly” employers no one balks when they get an email response at 11pm many times they respond themselves.   Many companies are in the news about how they are expanding paternal leave and have new policies regarding work-life balance.  But in the words of one of the NY time interviewees “work comes first, family comes second and trying to find a balance comes last.”  In the end of the day it’s all about making money and the worker comes second….. or third. 

The workplace should consider some of the skills required to be a parent as marketable skills.  As a mother I have learned to multitask in a way that I never thought possible.  I am more organized and more focused than previously.  I’ve also matured in a way that I would not have otherwise in my opinion.  Anyone who has ever had interactions with a toddler will tell you that can certainly teach you how to think outside the box.  I’m more patient an area that many of my co-workers would attest was a definite area for improvement.  Just as everything in my work life comes into my home life, everything in my home life comes into my work life.

 I’m thankful for this Amazon article and to every Amazon employee.  While Amazon maybe the extreme, the struggle of being a good parent and a good employee is one of thousands of Americans.   By highlighting the struggles of Amazon employees, hopefully some change can occur. At what point do we value our lives more than the number on our W2?  Are we going to sit on our death bed and contemplate the promotion we didn’t get or will it be the missed sporting events?

Why there are no pictures of my kids on the internet

Social media how I love and hate you all at the same time.  It seems odd that I feel comfortable blogging my thoughts, feelings and intimate moments to be stumbled across by anyone who logs onto the internet but when it comes to my children they are nowhere to be found.  My husband and I have made a decision to keep our children off social media.  As both my children are under the age of two that means no pictures of them being posted.  Oh how family members hate that pesky little rule that we have.  “This would be such a cute instagram photo” is usually accompanied by “your no social media rule is dumb.”  They argue I will put pictures of myself on the internet by why not my kids.  They are totally correct.  It’s my decision to post my own story on social media, because that’s what it just is a story.  I choose what it is that I WANT people to see or know about me.  I can be anyone I want to social media.  I’m proud of the baby weight that I lost, I’ll post a picture of myself with a cute outfit on not a picture of my bare stretch marked ridden stomach.  I want people to see the good and not the bad.

Why do I keep my kids off social media do you ask.  The answer is my kids are innocent; they have no control over what is being put out there for them.   Once something is on the internet it’s there forever.  Those images are so freely accessible it amazes me.  An acquaintance learned that lesson the hard way and her experience was a real eye opener for me.  This person posted a picture on Instagram of her child with a few different hash tags.  A few months later a friend of hers commented on why did she let a particular entity use her kid’s photo.  She hadn’t given permission; this entity found the photo online and used it in an article they were writing.  Everything was totally legal and now her child’s photo is in a post and there is nothing she can do.  Thankfully it was a tasteful publication, but where else is that photo.   I don’t know about you but there are a lot of places on the internet that I wouldn’t want to find my child’s photo.

We’ve all seen someone screen shot someone’s facebook page, shap chat ect. and post it to another forum.  Even with the most stringent of privacy settings, your “private posts” could be made very public very quickly.  I’ve witnessed people wanting to call child services on a parent or child that they don’t know because of someone reposting a photo with no context.  How many of us have a picture of their child that taken out of context could be taken the wrong way?  I’m sure that photo of my son in the driver’s seat of my car with the parking brake on holding keys in his hand from a vehicle nowhere around could be considered very dangerous to someone who doesn’t know me, my child or the context of the photo.  The fact of the matter is any picture can be used or manipulated in any way to make it fit whatever story a person wants to tell.  It bothers me that people feel so entitled to share other people’s photos.

Are there times that I want to post pictures? Of course, what mom doesn’t want to show off their children?  I see other people post photos and I think to myself it was so cute when my son did something similar.  Or when a family member comments how they haven’t seen my kids in a while; it would be so much easier to post a picture online for everyone to see rather than sharing pictures individually. 

I don’t want to make it sound like I keep my entire life and everything about my kids off the internet.   I made a status update when my son took his first steps.  My obligatory Facebook post for my second pregnancy is found below:

                                           

No big brother holding up a sign announcing little brother’s arrival on facebook, just a simple picture stating Santa brought a little something extra this year.  Did the lack of my son’s picture detract from the happiness? No.  When little brother was born a simple facebook status was enough.  We live in such a digital society that social media is almost a given.  People do wedding invites electronically, party invitations are online as well, I don’t know about you but if I want to know the weather today I pick up my phone to check it out… walking outside to check is a thing of the past.  I want my children to be the narrators of their own stories…. They don’t need mommy to do it for them before their stories really have had time to begin.

The Balancing Act

Recently, some friends were at my home and a conversation ensued about everyone’s jobs.  One person in particular, a relatively recent college grad, commented on the numbers of hours she was working.  She commented that many of the other employees have to leave early or at a specific time because they have children at home and it wasn’t fair that she was left “picking up their slack.”  As a working mother myself that made me very sad and made me wonder if that is what my co-workers think of me.  My work schedule is dictated by my child care schedule.  Often time working parents utilize daycare for their children while they are at work.  Daycares charge sizeable fees if you are late picking up your child which become a burden on the family.  Not to mention the need for a child to spend time with their parents.  School aged children get off the bus at a specific time often necessitating for a parent to be home to meet them.  As a mother my first responsibility is to my family conversely as an employee it is expected my first responsibility be to my employer.

There is a lot of discussion surrounding work life balance.  What is work life balance?  America is one of the only industrialized countries where such little emphasis is placed on the family.  According to the Center for American Progress, 90 percent of working mothers and 95 percent of working fathers report work-family conflict.   The idea of the 40 hour work week and leaving work at the office seem to be a thing of the past.  Marriages are currently toting only a 50-60% success rate and the number of marriages per year is also declining.  I find these statistics both troubling and telling.  It appears as the demands of the work force are increasing the focus on the individual and the family is declining.  Online dating has become a norm, even finding a partner has become streamlined due to people having less free time.  The expectations of the individual to the company are usually very defined through job descriptions, annual goals ect., however what responsibility do companies have to their employees?  It appears to me this is often less defined.

Why should my co-worker who does not have children have more pressure placed on them to put more hours in at the office?  They as an individual need time to grow and explore their interests.   If I put my family first is it going to stall my career? Should I pick up the computer and work instead of playing in the yard with my kids?  I’ve heard of my co-workers reading reports to their young children as a bedtime story or answering emails when up for a midnight feeding with the baby.

I personally struggle with the balance.  Isn’t the goal in doing a good job to get rewarded and promoted?  In my experience you need to go above and beyond your expected job goals to advance in the workplace.  If the expectations of my employer are that which are detrimental to my family I am forced with a choice.  I want to be successful in my career but I also want to be a good mother.  I ask myself looking back on my life will I be more upset if I miss this time with my kids or will I be more upset that I didn’t get a specific promotion?  The answer is often to put work aside and spend the time with my family but I also feel like my career is in a holding pattern as a result. 

Will the struggle ever change?  I hope for my kids it does.  If not for me, for them.  If we continue in this direction the family as we know it is going to be a thing of the past.  No one should ever feel like they have to work 70 hours a week just to be successful.  I wonder with people working that many hours, how many of them are truly productive or are people so worn out they can’t get as much done.  I hope the family and the individual become more of a focus.   I’m going to continue to struggle with the balance every day, I love my family and I love my career and they are going to remain in competition for my time.